The invention relates generally to the field of automated consumer transactions. More particularly, the invention relates to a system and method for processing active consumer transactions.
Currently, automated consumer transactions are generally performed both as passive events and in an isolated fashion. For example, the prototypical automated consumer transaction may be illustrated with an automatic teller machine (“ATM”). An ATM is configured to provide a service to a customer, such as a bank customer, that was once performed exclusively by a human being. This service includes delivering cash to the customer and debiting a specified account, or accepting cash/checks from the customer and crediting the account. The typical ATM performs these functions with a limited sphere of data. First, the ATM is configured to identify the customer by recognizing a magnetic pattern on a card issued by a financial institution and correlating that pattern with a personal identification code (“PIN”) entered by the customer at the time of the transaction. Second, the ATM is connected with a database maintained by the financial institution, and updates that database in accordance with the transaction that was performed. Finally, the amount of cash delivered by the ATM is generally limited to a small amount, such as $500.
FIGS. 1(a) and 1(b) illustrate the general functioning of ATM and other systems. Traditionally, as shown in FIG. 1(a), each ATM device 10 was connected with a hard-wired land line to a financial institution 20, with the connections shown by the arrows. In some instances, an individual ATM device may be connected with multiple financial institutions, such as shown for ATM 10-2, or multiple ATM's was connected with a single financial institution. Greater flexibility with the system may be provided by introducing electromechanical switch 30, as shown in FIG. 1(b), to act as a routing mechanism. With the electromechanical switch 30, connections need be made only between individual ATM's 10 and switch 30, and between switch 30 and individual financial institutions 20. Transaction routing is then handled entirely by switch 30.
This arrangement still suffers from some inflexibilities, however, and several features of the ATM transaction illustrate general characteristics of automated consumer transactions. For example, the transaction is passive in the sense that the ATM uses a fixed algorithm to perform its functions. The algorithm lacks the flexibility to accommodate differences among customers and to change its behavior over time with respect to individual customers in any but the most rudimentary way. Performance of the transactions is also isolated since customers are always presented with the same menu of possible transactions. There is no ability for the system to anticipate the needs of customers on an individual basis and to tailor them appropriately. Furthermore, electromechanical switch 30 does no more than make a connection from one point to another, thereby maintaining the isolated character of each ATM device.
These general limitations are also true of other types of consumer transactions, such as sales over the internet. One example is the sale of tickets to an event, such as a theater or sporting event. A customer wishing to purchase such tickets from a stand-alone device or over the internet is typically presented with a series of menus so that he can select the date of the event he wishes to attend and select the seats he wishes to purchase at the appropriate cost. This transaction is also passive and inflexible since it takes no account of past behavior of the customer. The transaction choices are always presented in the same unvarying way, irrespective of who the customer is. Moreover, even though both the ATM transaction and the ticket-sale transaction involve a financial component, they are handled entirely distinctly, with no information from one transaction being used for the other.
More recently, some effort has been made to provide limited flexibility in consumer transactions by automating risk assessments. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,870,721, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes, an automated system is provided for loan approval. The system collects standard loan-processing information and uses a neural network to make a risk assessment. This risk assessment is used to approve or deny the loan request automatically. While this is a somewhat more active system than is an ATM, for example, it does not particularly tailor itself to individual customers and remains very limited in scope.
There is, thus, a general need in the art for a system for processing consumer transactions that is both active and flexible.